I spent most of last week talking to reporters about NRDC's 19th annual beachwater quality report, Testing the Waters. I walked them through our findings: that that there were more than 20,000 times when beaches were deemed unhealthy for swimming--mostly because of sewer overflows and stormwater pollution.

Many of the journalists I spoke to were surprised by how much human and animal waste is fouling our beaches, especially in the Great Lakes, where 13 percent of beachwater samples violated public health standards

After all, we live during the 21st century in the richest country in the world. We shouldn't have to cancel beach trips-or contract diarrhea or skin rashes-because our aging stormwater and sewage systems dump waste into our streams and coastal waters. Surely we can do better than this, right?

The answer is yes, America can do a better job of keeping our beaches and waterways clean. In the past, we pioneered major innovations in water treatment and public health.

The trouble is there hasn't been much innovation in the United States in our treatment of water and wastewater in decades.

We desperately need to embrace the next wave of modernization in our water systems. The solutions already exist, and a number of forward-thinking cities have begun to implement them, but in order to put them in place on a widespread scale, we need new national standards that will motivate cities to take action.

Until we do, our trips to the beach will continue to send far too many of us rushing to the bathroom or the emergency room.  

No Major Innovation since the 1980s

If you ask water gurus what the major accomplishment of the Clean Water Act was, the first answer you will often get is: it required the secondary treatment of sewage.

Before the law passed, most cities were still dumping raw sewage into rivers, lakes, and oceans, or they were only treating providing primary treatment-simply removing the solids.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 changed that. It required all sewage to undergo secondary treatment and, as a result, plants today use both biological and mechanical treatment methods to remove contaminants. This is how Lake Erie was cleaned up. It is how the Hudson, Potomac, Ohio, and many other rivers were cleaned up too.

We Have a History of Making Clean Water Breakthroughs

The Clean Water Act's mandate of secondary sewage treatment was a public health milestone. But it was one of many in American history. Back in the 1800s, when cholera epidemics were killing thousands, people figured out that you shouldn't get your drinking water from the same place you dump sewage. This prompted cities to put intake pipes upstream of waste discharge.

This system worked for awhile until people realized that one city's downstream sewage dump was another cities upstream drinking water source. Just think of how many communities draw water and dump sewage along the Mississippi River.

Experts suggested that cities start treating sewage before it got released into waterways. As early as 1916, some U.S. cities stepped up their treatment techniques. The results were astonishing. Many public health advocates say that improvements in sanitation saved more lives than any medical innovation in the 20th century.

But even though the treatment technology was available, not all communities adopted it--not until the Clean Water Act passed and mandated improved controls.

Time to Confront the Next Generation of Pollutants

That was back in 1972. We haven't had a major nationwide technological innovation since then. And yet current secondary treatment methods don't address what is now the biggest source of water pollution in the United States: nutrients.

Nutrients fuel algal blooms, and when algae die, the process sucks up oxygen in the water, creating the infamous Dead Zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico. These deadly nutrients come primarily from fertilizer, either organic or manufactured, sewage, and animal feedlots.

Most current treatment plants were designed to reduce organic waste, not nutrients. This is a next generation problem, and we need to implement the next generation solution. The technologies exist to help sewage plants do this, but for many, there is no incentive, no mandate, and very little funding to support their use. 

Similarly, for contaminated stormwater-the largest identified cause of beach closings and advisories-we can utilize low impact development, or "green infrastructure." These techniques, including rain gardens along sidewalks and streets, green roofs for absorbing rain on buildings, and permeable pavement, help rainwater soak back into the ground instead of running off and carrying urban pollution into overtaxed sewer systems and waterways.

Now, more than three decades after the passage of the Clean Water Act, it is time to leap forward once again. We need new standards and new techniques to protect our water and our health. We must require facilities to reduce their nutrient pollution. In many cases, this can be accomplished with relatively minor adjustments to existing biological treatment processes.

For stormwater, we need to we design our neighborhoods, office buildings, and strip malls to protect water resources.  EPA has been talking about why these approaches are better for almost a decade - now it is time to put them into action comprehensively.   

Once these innovations become routine--just as secondary treatment once did--we will enjoy cleaner, safer waters for swimming. And NRDC's Testing the Waters report will no longer have to count beach closings in the thousands (click here to see if your beach is clean). I look forward to that day.